Evil Twin I Love You With My Stout Review

Name: Evil Twin I Love You With My Stout
Style: Imperial Stout
ABV: 12%

It's time to look at another offering from Evil Twin Brewing. This time around I'm reviewing their I Love You With My Stout, which is one of their Imperial Stout offerings. As for the long winded, oddball name, your guess is as good as mine.

The head pours a dark tan color with a thin appearance out along with a pitch black body. There is some visible carbonation on top and sides of the glass with some mild lacing

The aroma is quite roasty with some roasted barley and chocolate malt notes along with some strong bitter hoppy notes in the back

Flavor has some strong roasted barley notes with some chocolate malts along with a strong citrus hop sweetness and bitter hoppiness on the back end of the palate. The aftertaste is a mixture of bitter citrus hops and some chocolate malts. The flavor almost reminds me of a chocolate orange!

Body is moderate in terms weight and the carbonation is light. It also has a very smooth texture so it feels quite creamy.

The strong citrus hop profile is definitely something out of the ordinary for the style yet it works in synchronicity with the chocolate and roasty aspects of the flavor. While some traditionalists may not be a fan the sheer citrus hoppiness of the flavor, I enjoyed this a lot and would easily recommend this to anyone.

Evil Twin I Love You With My Stout - 9/10

Evil Twin Molotov Cocktail Review

Name: Evil Twin Molotov Cocktail

Style: Imperial IPA

ABV: 13%

Recently when I was down in the Twin Cities, I took it upon myself to grab some beers that we currently don't have available up in Duluth or Superior. One of the breweries I have been hearing about is Evil Twin Brewing, whom are based out of Copenhagen, Denmark but contract brew all of their beers at different breweries both in Europe and here in America.

Originally I was going to grab some Justin Blåbær and Hipster Ale  but they were out so I settled for their Molotov Cocktail Imperial IPA, which clocks in at 13% ABV. Normally the highest I've seen Imperial IPAs go is around 10% ABV.

Molotov Cocktail pours a hazy orange color with a fizzy head. The visible carbonation is moderate at the most and there is no lacing to speak of along the sides of the glass.

The nose has a nice citrus hop & honeydew melon flavors with a solid caramel malt backbone and some booziness. It's also got a fairly pungent aroma to it that gives it a strong feel.

Sure enough, the flavor possess some strong booziness with an equally strong yet bitter citrus hoppiness, grapefruit notes and ending on a substantial caramel maltiness. The boozy flavor actually does have a bit of a burning kick to it too, which makes the name of this beer all the more appropriate.

The body is quite thick yet moderate in terms of actual weight. The carbonation is also moderate too though in this case, I would prefer it to have mild to almost no carbonation at all when you consider the flavor.

It's not often I say this but I think that this would've benefitted from being lower in alcohol content, or they could've done a better job of masking the booziness (Easier said than done obviously.) I think the boozy aspect gets in the way to the point where it butts heads with the other flavors. With that said, everything else going in the flavor does possess a rather nice hop and malt profile so it's not a total loss, but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy this again.

Evil Twin Molotov Cocktail - 6/10

Mikkeller 1000 IBU Review

Name: Mikkeller 1000 IBU
Style: Imperial IPA
ABV: 9.6%

Ever seen a beer that seems so out there, that when you look at it you think to yourself "It could be very bad but I want to try this anyway?" Well this is one of these beers. While I was at a store over in Superior, I was talking with one of the employees about IPAs in general when he came across this oddity from Mikkeller Brewing, whose operations are based out of Denmark but this was brewed at Proefbrouwerij in Belgium, which is a facility dedicated solely for third parties to brew their own beer

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that it wasn't the cat burglar on the front that drew my attention to the beer but the "1000 IBU" on the front in bold font; Almost like it was trying to scream it at me. In case you didn't know, IBU stands for International Bittering Unit, which is a scale that determines how bitter it. Up until having this, the beer with the highest IBU that I had ever had was Flat Earth's Northwest Passage.

1000 IBU pours an extremely hazy dark orange color with a foamy head which has excellent retention. The lacing, of course, is also fairly abundant. Looking at the sediment at the bottom of the glass, I can also see that this is an unfiltered beer. Carbonation activity is also fairly calm.

The nose is very citrus & piney hop forward with some caramelized malt notes. I wish I could say more about the aroma but this is literally all I was able to come up with because the hops overpower the other aspects of the nose with the exception of the caramel malt notes.

When I took my first sip, I was greeted by a very malty-caramel sweetness and even a bit of toffee flavor. It was quite pleasant and for a moment I thought to myself "Say, this isn't so bad!" 

Then it hits you. The piney hop bitterness literally comes out of nowhere and hits the palate with such intensity that it is completely overwhelming. The aftertaste is a lingering bitter hop resiny flavor. It's like walking in a rainstorm and getting hit by wind-swept rain, then all of a sudden golf ball-sized hail starts falling at the same consistency as the rain and mercilessly pelts you as you try to run for cover; It's kind of like that.

The body is quite thick & heavy and the carbonation is on the moderate side, which adds more intensity to what is already an intense beer.

I have a sneaking suspicion that 1000 IBU was created for the sole purpose of seeing how hoppy/bitter one could make a beer, almost like an experiment. If that was the case then it was a resounding success.

With all this in mind, I declare this to be a novelty beer. It's hoppy, malty and there is no booziness to speak of. It also accomplished what it was trying to achieve which was create a bitter/resiny beer. I'd normally say that it should tone down the bitterness but then I realized that would defeat the entire purpose of this beer existing. All and all, this beer is a prime example of "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."

Mikkeller 1000 IBU - 6/10